Sociologists have been studying disasters (natural and “man” made), but without much fanfare. In fact, back in 1972 one of the worst disasters took place in a small coal mining town. Here is a description:

The Buffalo Creek Flood was an accident that occurred on February 26, 1972 when a coal slurry impoundment dam built on a hillside in Logan County, West Virginia by the Pittston Coal Company burst. The resulting flood unleashed approximately 132 million gallons (500,000,000 L) of black waste water upon the residents of 16 coal mining communities in Buffalo Creek Hollow. Out of a population of 5,000 people, 125 people were killed, 1,121 were injured, and over 4,000 were left homeless. The incident completely leveled the town of Saunders, W.V. (the current town of Saunders is not the same one that once was located in Buffalo Creek).

Sociologist Kai Erickson wrote a book about it that is still worth reading. His work, an analysis of the effects of the disaster on the Buffalo Creek community entitled Everything In Its Path. The book later went on to win the Sorokin Award, an accolade handed out by the American Sociological Association for “outstanding contribution to the progress of sociology.”
Similarly, sociologist Adeline G. Levine wrote a book (LOVE CANAL) about another disaster that took place in the upstate New York community known as Love Canal. It is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. Unlike the Buffalo Creek disaster, Love Canal was the result of deliberate chemical dumping in the Niagara River by the corporate chemical company Hooker Chemical and Plastics. The human damage was horrific. Birth deaths and cancer were discovered to be the outcome of the toxic dumping.

I mention these two examples from the sociological literature because I wonder who will write the definitive study of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Can someone write this study?

From what we heard and saw yesterday, I doubt it. The destruction from Katrina in Bay St. Louis and Waveland Mississippi is incomprehensible. The death. The destruction of homes, schools, businesses, libraries and bridges can not be imagined. These forms of destruction can not even become movies.

Listening to the Hancock Library staff introduce us to our Service Learning Project not only brought many questions from the class but also tears. The bus tour of Bay St. Louis and Waveland was quiet. Other than our tour guide no one spoke. You could hear gasps only; all of us were stunned.

Hence, our first day in Bay St. Louis was a tough one. This morning we will conduct several service learning projects. We will build scrap books, scan documents and take oral histories. All of these projects were suggested to us via Dr. Lynn Sutton our Director of Z. Smith Reynolds Library. Her international work on the board of a major consortium of libraries brought this possibility to my attention early 2007. The students are “pumped” about the projects as are the staff traveling with us.

The students participating in the oral history project took Institutional Review Board (IRB) training in the spring to obtain certification necessary for working with human subjects (most groaned about the task)!

Later today I will report on how we did this morning.
Have a great day.
Earl Smith

Today we spent all afternoon hearing about the small town of Bay St. Louis and the changes in the town since Hurricane Katrina. Change
is not a strong enough word to describe the devastation that the surrounding community has experienced in the last two years, as this town barely exists anymore. We got a tour of many neighborhoods in Hancock County and most houses had been completely demolished by the storm. We drove around and basically only saw the foundations of the homes… at one point we saw a couple steps that led to the previously existing house and an oven that the hurricane had left behind. We drove around the small town for over an hour but I feel like we saw nothing; probably because there was nothing to see. It looked like there never was civilization in some areas, I could barely believe a natural disaster could be so destructive. Having no control over such a major change in one’s life must be incredibly discomforting and traumatizing. Tomorrow we are going to record the oral histories of several members of this community, so hopefully all of this will feel more real after that.

I think that the motto of today should be “we shall overcome”. Yes, that classic phrase used by many Black Americans that marched and led the Civil Rights Movement. But, today took a different spin on those powerful words of, “we shall overcome”. The community of Hancock community really respresent a strong group of people that have endured so much because of a natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina. It is so hard for me and many of my peers to imagine what it is like to live through such a devastating storm. I am grateful to meet the strong people that continue to live, work and put so much of their heart into thier community. Listening to the stories of the citizens from Hancock County, Waveland, and Bay St. Louis, MS gave me the opportunity to think about how I would react in the same situation and if I would be able to possess such strength. The public library system is a powerful example of a branch of society that can pull resources together to help people within the community with important tools like telephones, computers and even clean restrooms. I am pleased that Dr. Sutton is spearheading this part of the class because there is a lot we can learn and hopefully, when I come back to the area I can do hands on things such as helping to rebuild because that would be a great experience as well.

A major part of the class that I can’t leave out was when we went on the bus and toured the library’s surrounding area of Waveland and Bay St. Louis. Many of the beautiful beach front homes were destroyed and some are being rebuilt. An important part of the city that was just opened was the new bridge. The opening of the bridge makes life in Hancock County a little simpler because of less traveling. Commerce is such an important aspect to keep a city running and after Katrina, many of the city’s businesses were destroyed. It’s interesting how many of the major franchises like Burger King come back into the community and rebuild quickly. Money truly is a major part of why cities like Hancock County can rebuild and it was a good thing to hear that money and other resources have been used in this community. I see great things for the future of this community and that is a blessing. On another level, I would add that it doesn’t seem like Hurricane Katrina has completely ruined the spirits of those in this community. The gracious and kind attitude that the administrators of the library had toward us says a lot about the community itself and that it seems like the value togetherness. Also, just being in one of the local restuarants today, I noticed a lot of families that are probably locals that seem very cheerful especially youth of the community. Even though, almost two years ago, this area was completely flooded and lives were completely changed because of Hurricane Katrina.

This morning we went to the Hancock County Library.  The people who talked to us while we were there were so generous and a joy to be around.  It was amazing to see the huge hearts they had for each other and for the community they love so much.  The library served as the central location for educating people about what to do in the days after the storm.  It housed the National Guard and was one of the only buildings with functioning restrooms and air conditioning, if not the only.  The women and men who run the library system for the county were willing to make great sacrifices of time and effort to help those in their communities who were left without anything.  The amazing thing about this is that those providing the assistance were left without anything as well.  I’m really excited to get to talk with them more tomorrow and to hear the stories of so many in their communities who have experienced such devastating loss.

After lunch, we took a tour of Bay Saint Louis, Waveland, and the small communities in the area.  Words cannot describe the heartbreaking loss we saw.  I thought that the devastation was bad in New Orleans when I was there over spring break.  The most extreme locations there cannot begin to compare to what we saw in the communities today.  These people literally lost everything.  In most areas, especially those homes right on the water, nothing was left but the foundation of the house or the lot where a house once stood.  Two images really stick in my mind.  At the bank in Waveland (I think), all that remained was the vault.  The building which this was enclosed within was completely gone.  Another image gave a visual representation to what was seen the day of the storm.  At Prima’s house, their boat was lifted up over the trees (because that’s how high the water went) and landed in the middle of a wooded area.  When you look at the scene now, the boat still sitting in the same spot, it’s confusing as to how it got there.  The trees around it aren’t broken down, so the only answer is that the water carried it there and when the water went down, the boat landed.  These trees were huge.  It finally gave me a means for conceptualizing what 30 to 40 foot water would look like.

I think the most shocking thing is that it has been two years and so much looks like the storm happened a few months ago.  Much debris has been removed, but most of the homes we saw have not begun reconstruction efforts.  This speaks volumes to the amount of effort required to rebuild an entire community.  It also shows just how severe the devastation was.

As I sat back and thought about it this afternoon, I wondered about the ways in which a natural disaster like this can perpetuate inequality.  It seems to me that many of those with community connections and some monetary means have been able to move or rebuild.  While my heart breaks for all those affected by the hurricane in any way, I go to pieces when I think about those who literally have nothing.  Their homes were all they had in this world and now those are gone, along with all the memories that the walls held inside.  Many people got very small insurance payoffs.  What do those without accrued wealth or volunteers to come help them do to get a new home?  Who is there to help them?  Do they know the resources available to them?  Do they know who to ask for help?  Just some questions to ponder when thinking about the storm…hopefully some of them will get answered tomorrow.

Today was very interesting. We had the opportunity to meet a few local government officials along with the library staff of the Hancock County Library System. It was interesting to hear them talk about how quickly they received help (3 days). They told us how they have a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality; and how that philosophy has allowed them to stay focused on the road to recovery. They told us how they spent time applying for a $25,000 grant to restore 5 pieces of artwork. They also spent a lot of time telling us about how energy is being used to plant new trees in areas that had many trees uprooted. We also learned that the bridge connecting Bay Saint Louis to the rest of the Gulf Coast was just recently opened.

Nevertheless, the sociological concept that I pondered while I listened was the Symbolic Interactionist Paradigm; which essentially says that we construct our own social reality based on several environmental factors.

The ironic thing about today is that two years ago I was in this county volunteering in Pearlington, MS. I did not realize that I was actually returning to the same area that I had previously volunteered four months after Katrina devastated the coast. (BTW: In fact, I found out that the building I stayed in during my mission trip was the Pearlington Branch of the Hancock Library System; which was connected to a school) And, it was very very very interesting to listen to the speakers talk today and compare and contrast those comments with those of people from the same county only two years ago. And, I must end by saying that the other sociological term that I pondered heavily today was conceptualization. This really came to the forefront of my mind as I listened to various speaker speak about community.

Tomorrow, we will be getting up bright and early to conduct oral histories, do strap-booking, scanning, and fulfill any other tasks that we can to help the Hancock County Library System.

To be Continued …………..

Today was one of the longest seeming days yet.  I expected that our time in the library would be a lot more information about the library in general, but was pleasantly surprised that much of our time was spent discussing Hurricane Katrina at large, as well as on a personal level.  The people at the library and from different organizations throughout the city couldn’t have been more welcoming to us in their wanting to come and speak to us, and to provide us with all sorts of tokens to show their appreciation for our time we were giving to them.  I was surprised with how much information I really didn’t know about Hurricane Katrina, and the massive amounts of devestation it caused to people significantly far from the actual coast.  I’ve had a hard time imagining what such a place like Bay St. Louis looks like at the current time, hearing conflicting reports that the cities were up and running as normal in some places, yet still seeing pictures of nothing but rubble and house foundations where ornate neighborhoods used to stand.

The irony I felt when you could drive down a street and have a perfect pristine mansion surrounded on either side by fallen trees, metal scraps, and remaining items from houses that used to exist was kind of overpowering for me.  How do you cope in a situation like this?  When is it proper to move on and try to get yourself and your life and property back to normal without seeming to be ridiculous to the people who are still having to live in FEMA trailers and tents more than two years later?  I really am struck with how to deal with this.  It is of utmost importance at times like this to unite and help others as a means of survival physically and mentally.  Yet, when is it proper to draw the line with the time and money commitment to others, and start repairing your life to the level that you used to consider normal?  All of this has to do with what level people are starting from, and reflects the continued focus we have had on how social stratification manifests itself in many different situations.  This town, like every place we have seen so far, as well as most places in America, is not exempt from the role that socioeconomics plays in life in general, and how citizens are able to cope and recover in a situation such as this.

I am excited for tomorrow to get to interview individuals who actually lived through this, yet hope I can be strong enough to deal with whatever impossible stories these people will have to tell.  I feel much more comfortable going into this with other people so we can all work together to do a well rounded interview for ourselves and for the individuals we will be talking with.

Today was the start of the part of the trip that I have looked forward to because I am finally getting the opportunity to give a helping hand to my colleagues who work in a Katrina devastated library. After the disaster, our profession pulled together and did all sorts of fantastic things to help libraries who were wiped out by the hurricane. It’s one thing to assist by writing a check but quite another to be able to travel and volunteer in person.

I hope that the students came away from today with an increased awareness of the importance of the public library in most communities, and this one in particular. I think often, folks just take library services for granted and those of us who use academic libraries see them as a place to research and study….maybe not much else. But public libraries fill many important needs for their communities and today, Prima did a wonderful job of describing the essential types of services that her library (and thousands of other public libraries) provide. The fact that they could keep operating and fill such an important role to hurricane impacted citizens doesn’t surprise me. One of the reasons I was attracted to this profession was my admiration of the way libraries help shape their communities. I only have a tiny idea of how difficult it must have been for all of the staff to soldier on under such circumstances. I lived in Charlotte, NC when Hurricane Hugo hit. I worked for a home center company (like Lowe’s or Home Depot) and it was essential that we manage to get and keep the store opened so that people could get the goods required to function in a disaster. Hugo was a big mess, but nothing at all on the scale we heard about today. Hearing Prima talk about how her staff rose to the challenge and continues to do so made me proud to be associated with them all, if only by profession.

I’m looking forward to our service projects tomorrow, I think you all will find them to be rewarding.

Our student athletes and Linda McKay from the Bay St. Louis Library

While visiting with the friendly folks at Hancock County Library today, I end this day still trying to envision this place under so much water and wind that was the cause of so much structural damage that I actually saw with my own eyes today. Hearing their stories and watching the videos gave me an idea as to what happened in this town of Bay St. Louis, MS but actually the experience riding around town and seeing only foundations where houses and businesses once stood cannot really be put into words. A natural disaster that led to the seemingly “unnatural:” water higher than 38 feet, nothing but stairs left on a structure, boats carried OVER very high-standing trees, people living in tents for two year. THANK YOU to the people of Hancock County Library for teaching me a lesson today; true foundations are not under our buildings but it rests in people’s will. It’s in people’s will to carry on in spite of and not only for themselves but for the entire community.

So many questions come from hearing the different accounts of pre and post Katrina aftermath in the Gulf Coast. How can insurance companies really turn their backs on loyal clients who have been paying on their policies for year? Is there really any need to debate whether wind or water damage damaged the house when the structure is destroyed? At the end of the day, these insurance companies are nothing but capitalistic machines turned monopolies since the citizens in these devastated areas have no other recourse for insurance.

This talk of Hurriance aftermath may seem like a departure from the last couple of days from Civil Rights and equal opportunity but indeed it is not. Some people could not afford an insurance policy before the storm and some could not afford to evacuate even with the knowledge that a storm was coming. Renters came back to find their apartments and homes demolished with no alternative but to cut their losses and start over from zero. The storm damage did not discriminate based on race, class or gender; it was an equal opportunity villain. However, the equal opportunity to rebuild and regained even a new sense of “normalcy” seems to have elluded those on the lower level of the socioeconomic ladder.

Also a continuation of the last couple of days is the ubiquitous image of the Confederate flag which permeates Mississippi with it’s embedded position in the State’s flag. I have somewhat desensitized myself (whether this desensitization is wrong or right) from seeing the image in people’s yards or on the front tag of their trucks, but it takes on a whole new meaning when it’s a State approved and OFFICIAL symbol as it is in Mississippi’s flag (and until recently Georgia’s flag) and on the state grounds of Alabama and South Carolina (as if it’s position on the grounds as oppposed to atop the State House sends a completely different message from State officials). Yesterday Dr. Hattery spoke to such a strong commitment to desegregation by many Southerners in these states who would rather let school system’s close instead of providing an integrated, equal education that included black students, depriving white children also of access to public education. When built upon this educational foundation and the flag that supports this ideology, should it surprising when looking at HS graduation rates for all 50 US states in 2005 collected by United Health Foundation that Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina ranked 45, 46, 49 and 50 respectively?

It is difficult to see a commitment to an equal education that the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs Board of Education should come about when in these four states with the lowest graduation rates are where some of the highest percentages of black residents in the US are found. In 2005, Misssissippi had 37% black residents, Alabama had 26%, Georgia had 30% and South Carolina had 29% all compared with the national average of 13 percent.

Does the “stars and bars” really represent heritage and not hate (and the oppressive sytems born of this hate)?

I feel that it is incredibly important to preface this blog by saying that BY NO MEANS do I intend to marginalize any of the tragedies surrounding the people in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina is an all encompassing tragedy that did NOT discriminate. It impacted all people’s lives without regard for class or social standing. It brought destruction and death and no matter what, the losses accumulated just a few years ago are extremely significant. With that being said, I think that it is important to note that the WORLD does in fact discriminate. This entire trip is a study on the stratification of the Deep South. This means that the essence of our course revolves around looking at the fact that there are those with and those without, people in power and people who are seemingly powerless, people who have a voice and people who go unheard. The current work that Bay Saint Louis is performing should be applauded in the highest. They are presently pulling themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps and although there is still work that needs to be done, each day they seem to be approaching some sense of relative stability. (Relative stability of course in comparison to conditions immediately after Hurricane Katrina.) For me to even begin imagining losing everything that I know and love, my home, is something I hope I never have to experience.

To continue the bootstraps metaphor, a question that I am forced to ask myself as I begin to analyze parts of this extremely difficult situation is: What happens to people who never had bootstraps, or even boots, in the first place to pull themselves up? It seems to me that Bay Saint Louis is a very close knit community with the means to make things happen. They seem to be very well connected to public offices and elected officials and quite capable in the areas of mobilizing efforts to get goals accomplished. For the less fortunate areas throughout the Gulf Coast and possibly the country, I feel that the inherent inequalities presently found in our society greatly disadvantage their opportunity to survive such a disaster. If two people run a race and one has a head start while the other has a delayed start, there is an obvious upper hand for the runner who receives the head start. Just as in life, there are people in our country who may have never even been up to a standard level of living before Katrina. Those very people would obviously be even less capable of surviving after such a deadly natural disaster.

What bothers me is not that anyone takes advantage of any opportunity afforded to them. Instead, I am upset at the fact that opportunities are never offered to all people because of socioeconomic differences. I think that there are numerous issues of accountability that arise when there is such a strong need for help in some damaged areas while others have been repaired. In communities where African-Americans or other minorities with fewer connections live, were relationships strong enough with people in high places to make things happen in a prompt manner or did they go unnoticed, forced to wait for help from a federal system that had already neglected many of their basic necessities prior to Katrina. The thing that angers me the most is the fact that if socioeconomic issues were more closely observed and better addressed by our government, perhaps, there would have been fewer deaths in this entire misfortune.

I remember watching the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina on the news stations broadcasting on television 24 hours a day and feeling a sense of helplessness for those whose lives were being altered with no means of intervention. I also remember past natural disasters that affected the United States but this one was something different. This one gave me a different feeling inside. Seeing before and after pictures displayed on the television screen often made my jaw drop, from just trying to fathom what had just happened to so many innocent people. I never though that I would have the opportunity to meet members of the communities affected or even set foot in the very areas Katrina made landfall, but those thoughts became reality today as we visited Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

Today we visited and met the wonderful people of the Hancock Public Library, a place where the word ‘community’ takes on a more meaningful definition. This specific location was the place where many turn to as a place of refuge and as an information desk to help answer the questions, “What do I do now? Where do I go? Who should I talk to for help?” The determined, loving members of the Hancock Public Library community bonded together in order to utilize their resources to help ensure that they would ‘make it through’. This small yet very unique and strong city is often overlooked when talking about the wrath of Katrina and that is very disappointing. Not to belittle the horrible experiences of other cities/towns affected by Hurricane Katrina, this is the location where Katrina introduced herself to our land. The devastation was so intense it is amazing how well the community has rebounded by rebuilding, reorganizing, while pushing forward to make the area they all grew to know and love ‘home’ again.

One vital aspect of how this city survived was its ability to utilize resources acquired through their extensive networks. Phone calls and emails to anyone and everyone that could help in any way where placed in order to retard the devastation caused by the storm. Though inconvenienced by the fallen debris and access roads to outside resources either blocked or destroyed, the community bonded together when the odds where heavily stacked against them.

Looking at the city of Bay St. Louis along with New Orleans, another city severely impacted by Katrina, questions began to arise revolving around the idea of privileged vs. underprivileged. Bay St. Louis seems to have a heavy population of mostly affluent and prosperous communities who have access to crucial resources that made the wrath of Katrina dissolve faster than those in not so resourceful areas, such as lower socioeconomic areas of New Orleans and other cities with a higher poverty rate. Never to discredit all the hard work of those in the great communities of Bay St. Louis, I feel that our society caters to the more affluent peoples of our nation compared to those less fortunate who had to struggle not because of their stubbornness to not leave when warned, but the unavailability to do so. This catering can come in the forms of quicker response times, temporary living spaces to receiving Federal Aid from organizations such as FEMA.

The lack of opportunity can be caused by numerous reasons such as the lack of networks constructed and connected through privilege (economic/financial). Those in the lower income areas of New Orleans did not possess the wherewithal to escape, or even rebuild after the storm mainly because of socioeconomic status and the governments capitalistic nature, where those with assets and of higher socioeconomic status receive aid faster and qualify to more support in my different areas of our society. Not to dishonor the strong efforts made by prosperous communities faced with the obstacle to overcome such circumstances, some did not have the opportunity to overcome those same obstacles no matter how determined they were to succeed. Our nation/society is just not set up that way. It is structured so that those of wealth are given advantages quicker than those less fortunate, even though they may be equally deserving of the same benefits.

This is a problem that doesn’t just show its face when natural disasters occur such as the terrible event Hurricane Katrina. The same struggles and unequal opportunities are present when someone who needs a organ transplant is overlooked while someone of higher socioeconomic status slides up the donor list because they ‘know somebody’ or have the networks/connections to get when they need. Not to say that networking a working hard to have access to certain resources is wrong, but to believe in this idea during such a dreadful disaster is not right, especially when people’s lives are at risk in conjunction with a community’s way of life. I believe that the contrast of how the communities of Bay St. Louis and New Orleans rebounded is closely linked to this idea of privilege/socioeconomic status overrides necessity/morality.

When we use the word community, there are questions that are attached to this strong word as well such as, “Which ‘community’ are you referring to? Does that community just incorporate those who are similar to you, not just geographically but economically? What privileges are available for this so called ‘community’, and does everyone in this group have access to these same privileges?” These might seem like trivial questions linked to a word that is self explanatory but it our society today, the idea of community has various meanings according to your socioeconomic status and way of live which leads to the problems we have in our nation today.